Scandinavian Visiting Lecturer 2011

The pictures of Bergen make it look like a medieval port with old wooden buildings facing a beautiful fiord. So when I was invited to be the visiting lecturer to the Scandinavian Physiological Society in Bergen in August 2011 I was delighted to accept. Now I have learnt that there is only one camera angle that gives this impression; the rest of Bergen is a busy modern city with an above average rainfall. It would be a busy period as I was already the guest of the British Physiological Society in Oxford in July, had a family wedding in London and an invitation to visit my brother-in-law in Spain in the middle of July. So I would be away for 6 weeks, my longest break from the laboratory and full-time academia for many years.

The Scandinavian and Australian Physiological Societies have had a visiting lecturer scheme for several years now. The general idea is that a Scandinavian comes to Australia one year and an Australian goes to Scandinavia in alternate years. The lecturer attends the main meeting of the host society, gives a plenary lecture and visits some other departments in the host country. So I started planning. Since I was to be in Europe for July and August I wanted to make my extra visits to Scandinavia before the Bergen meeting 11-14 August. Herein lies a small problem to those who know Scandinavia - nearly every Scandinavian simultaneously goes on holiday in July and early August. So the first few departments I contacted said they would love to see me but July or August were not convenient as there would be nobody in the Department. However I persisted and eventually found two laboratories who offered a warm welcome and fulfilled the other rule; they were in countries other than the country of the main meeting.

So it was that I flew to Copenhagen and caught the train to Odense in early August. My host was Niels Örtenblad in a Department of Sports Science at the University of Southern Denmark. We share an interest in the fate of muscle glycogen which, as every marathon runner knows, is consumed in the first few hours of a marathon, and is the main reason why one feels so terribly weak in the last hour or so. What no one knows is why the absence of glycogen make muscles so weak. Niels and I spent a pleasant day debating possible mechanisms and planning a possible collaboration.

The next day I flew to St Petersburg, not part of the lecture series but an opportunity to be a tourist in one of the most interesting cities of Russia with an amazing array of eighteenth century buildings lining a spectacular river frontage and canals. I spent a day entranced in the State Hermitage Museum where the advantages of controlling much of Asia and Eastern Europe were liberally displayed. It was the period of ‘White Nights’ when Russians celebrate the summer and the city remains active through most of the night.

Train to Helsinki and then Kuopio in central Finland. Pasi Tavi, who I knew from mutual collaborations with Hakan Westerblad, had invited me to visit the Virtanen Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Eastern Finland. He studies calmodulin-activated kinases in skeletal muscle but we also share an interest in pacemaker tissues and particularly how IP3-dependent pathways can contribute to pacemaking. I had never been to Finland so it was an inspiration to discover a modern, dynamic country with a very active medical sciences research profile. Pasi was a magnificent host who looked after my culinary needs with as much attention as my scientific program.

Finally to Bergen and the Annual Scandinavian Physiological Society Meeting. Bergen is a sprawling city set in mountains and fiords but the old city is small and central and retains the atmosphere of the old port. The meeting was situated in the Law Faculty with attractive views over the city and excellent modern facilities. The meeting ran over 3 days and was preceded by a satellite symposium on the Mighty Mitochondrion. The main meeting had a very exciting and busy program with three simultaneous symposia competing for ones interest. I was particularly impressed with the mix of international and Scandinavian speakers in every symposium. Student participation was very active with many posters and short communications and the posters were given a central position in the meeting. My talk on muscular dystrophy had an excellent audience with lots of questions reflecting the traditional interest of Scandinavians in muscle. The social side of the meeting was also well developed with trips to the Art Gallery and a dinner on top of one of the local mountains and the weather was particulary kind with long, warm and sunny days.

I thank the Scandinavian Physiological Society for the invitation and the opportunity to taste the science, the food and the culture of so many parts of Scandinavia. Exchanges like these add immensely to the diversity of science and I thank the many people who contributed to my visit with friendship and scientific exchanges. Australia looks forward to hosting the next Visiting Lecturer from Scandinavia for our  2012 Sydney meeting.

David Allen
Sydney

One of our new SPS members!

Eva-karin Sällstedt is a PhD student in the Molecular Exercise Physiology group at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.
Her research aims to measure and characterise signalling pathways and networks, as well as specific factors involved in mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle in response to training, both in healthy subjects and in patients. The abundance, morphology and functional properties of mitochondria are finely tuned to meet the energetic, metabolic and signalling demands of the cell. In this way the mitochondria are highly affected by physical activity and exercise. In response to exercise, muscles adapt with a multitude of gene expression changes and protein modifications, yet the exact mechanisms behind these changes are not clear. One of the most profound changes is an increased mitochondrial density i.e. mitochondrial biogenesis. This highly interconnected network is regulated in most cases by different transcription factors, many of which regulate nuclear genes encoding mitochondrial proteins. One of the factors that she is currently studying is Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α), which has been proposed to be vital for the mitochondrial machinery. To study this she tries to combine different physiological and molecular measurements with biological analysis. The main data collections are obtained from human biopsies from the vastus lateralis muscle by using the percutaneous needle biopsy technique. By training subjects and patients she hope to increase the knowledge about the mechanisms that mediate the training response and mitochondrial biogenesis, both from a genetic and epigenetic perspective.

Featured special Interest Group (SIG):  Nordic Neuroscience

Nordic Neuroscience was established in 2007 by Eric Hanse, University of Gothenburg, and Esa Korpi, University of Helsinki. The SIG group is currently chaired by Kimmo Jensen, Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University

Recently, this SIG contributed with 4 invited speakers (E Hanse, Gothenburg; Y Sakaba, Gottingen; Y Goda, UCL; J Sjostrom, UCL) for a full symposium at the SPS annual meeting in Copenhagen April 2010. Nordic Neuroscience has furthermore proposed a session entitled ‘Extrasynaptic Signaling’ at the SPS annual meeting in Helsinki, Finland, which will take place from the 24-26 of August 2012. Other current activities include the exchange of PhD students within the SIG, and faculty members who have taught at graduate courses at their respective universities.

We suggest continuing the formation of a strong network in order to make a specific collaboration which can facilitate the open discussion of academic neuroscientific topics, especially with relation to the Nordic countries. In order to further develop this, we suggest Nordic neuroscientists to become members of this SIG, which is possible if you are already an SPS member. As a SIG member you will get different benefits, such as the opportunity to apply for travel grants for participation in scientific meetings and to propose SIG symposia. In addition, as a SIG member you can apply for economical support for workshops and local meetings, if the meeting is open for all members of Nordic Neuroscience.

Sincerely,

Kimmo Jensen
Department of Biomedicine
Aarhus University

Contact:
Gitte Bundgaard Christiansen
Department of Biomedicine
Aarhus University
gbch@fi.au.dk

The Scandinavian Physiological Society Annual Meeting, 24-26 August 2012

http://www.oulu.fi/sps2012/

Our next SPS meeting in Helsinki, Finland, will take place on the 24-26 of August. The deadline for symposia proposals is on the 15^st of February. Please use the symposia submission page to submit your proposals - only those will be recognized and evaluated. The submissions page for abstracts will open in March. Travel grants will be available for this meeting.